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6 Useful Tips to Choose the Right Database for Your Mobile App

Jun 07 2019Written by Manektech Team

Databases form an integral part of any website or custom mobile application development today. When mobile apps were first introduced, they majorly rely on the internet connection to work. But, today the need to be dependent on the network is eradicated by database providers and cloud solutions that offer fast syncing and offline capabilities to improve their performance. Solutions like Amazon Cognito, Google Firebase, Couchbase Mobile and Microsoft Azure Mobile Services come integrated with great synchronization capabilities to let the app performs smoothly both online and offline.

Choosing a suitable database for your mobile app could be a little tricky if you aren’t much familiar with the effective strategies. Being a leading offshore mobile app development service provider, we have curated some tried and tested strategies that could help you in selecting the right database for your app.

1 Make Sure the Data is Always Protected

It is critical to make sure that the data is stored, accessed and transmitted in a secure manner when using decentralized and synchronized storage. You also need to take into account all the things such as data at rest, data in motion, authentication, reading access, writing access and so on. Make sure the database offers flexible authentication. It should also provide file encryption and data-level encryption for data at rest on both client as well as the server, and flawless communication over a safe channel when data in motion. For data read and write, the database must offer enough control to the users for accessing and modifying the data.

2 The Data Model Should Be Flexible

The data model should be flexible enough to accommodate changes and modification whenever essential. The flexibility of the data model will decide whether you can fulfill the model requirements for your mobile app in an efficient way. What’s more important is that it will portray whether the model can be efficiently evolved when your requirements further advances. The database flexibility is very essential in mobile applications as they evolve at a faster pace than ever, so it becomes necessary to make sure it is flexible enough. Considering such demands, relational databases are a wise choice for apps that need strong data consistency.

3 The Data Should Be Well-Structured

The structure of data is all about how it is stored and fetched. As mobile apps work with a number of data formats, it is necessary to choose an appropriate database system that has suitable data structures for data storage and retrieval. Failing to do so will result in very slow data transferring process. It will also take more time for developers and data managers to fix the issues in order to improve the performance. Some other elements which may also help you choose the right database system are size, scalability and accessibility of your data.

4 Compatibility with the Platforms

Before you choose a database, you need to ponder upon what operating systems you are willing to use to develop mobile apps. Whether for IoT devices or wearables, the operating system helps determine what database to choose. If you plan to include support for more platforms in the future, you should also take that thing into consideration. Mobile apps continually evolve to get better and you should always keep that in mind while choosing the database. It is also important that you consider cloud options based on the required operating system support during the app development.

5 Data Conflict Resolving Capability

The mobile apps that use decentralized data writes frequently encounter data conflicts when the same data is updated by multiple users at the same time. Therefore, the data system must have a robust support tool that can resolve these conflicts immediately. The conflict handling mechanism should not only be flexible, but it should also provide resolution automatically, either through the cloud, an external system or human. However, the conflict resolution mechanism differs for every system, so it’s recommended that you acquire adequate knowledge before settling on a database system.

6 The Database Should be Scalable and Fast

The speed of reading and writing the data is one of the most significant aspects to consider while choosing a database system. Your customers don’t like to wait, therefore, you should incorporate a database that can handle all sorts of input and output data in the fastest possible way. There are many database systems which are particularly designed to handle read-heavy apps and write-heavy apps. It is advisable that you can consider choosing a database that can handle a larger amount of data than you would need in the future to make sure your system never bogs down.

Final WordsThe competency of any mobile app is determined by its efficiency to handle the data. This is possible only if you choose the right database system. ManekTech has top mobile app developers and data managers on board who can help you analyze the amount of data and suggest a suitable database for your app. We take full measure of the above mentioned strategies to build flexible, secure, fast and manageable database systems for mobile apps.